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DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



PENOBSCOT ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS, 



AND 



FRIENDS OF POPULAR EDUCATION, 



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BY REV. J. C. LOVEJOY. 




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BANGOR: 

PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION. 
SAMUEL S. SMITH, PRINTER. 

1839. 



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ADDRESS. 



The object for which we meet to-day is one of silent, yet per- 
manent good. It has not those outward attractions, which gather 
the unthinking and the selfish. These are moved by sudden im- 
pulses, and often forsake the cause they have espoused, when most 
it needs their aid. We have come to enquire what may be 
done, and what we can do, to diffuse more widely and in deeper 
channels, the streams of knowledge. Those who have preceded 
me on the anniversaries of this association, have pointed out the 
defects in our present system of common schools, and have sug- 
gested the appropriate remedies. I need not repeat what they 
have said, nor traverse again the field of their careful observation. 
The subject opens before us mind, in all its original states, and 
in its various progressions. For the purpose of my present lecture, 
I define Education thus — the science of rearing men, fitted to be 
useful members of society on earth, and for everlasting felicity in 
heaven. 

There are several favorable circumstances which must concur, 
in order to produce such men. My object is to show what these 
circumstances are, and how far they are found in our own State. 

In the first place, in order to produce such men, the climate must 
be favorable. 

Not all parts of the earth are adapted to the culture of every 
production. Some portions yield the best specimens of the vege- 
table, other some of the animal world. Man is by no means an 
exception to this law. Not every latitude will yield first rate men. 
Within the tropics, and within the arctic circles, are such extremes 
of heat and cold, that men are found of dwarfish bodies, or of 
obtuse and inactive minds. As you approximate these circles, the 
strength of body, or of mind, or both, becomes less. Strike a circle 



six degrees north of the northern tropic, and another six within the 
arctic line, and you have comprised the gold and silver of the hu- 
man race — you have left little but brass and dross. This would 
include the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians 
and Romans among the ancients ; and the modern nations in the 
first ranks of knowledge and civilization. On this zone of the 
earth, languages, laws, religion, arts, science and invention have 
received their greatest perfection. All other sections of the globe 
have little which can profitably compare with the monuments of 
mind, which crown the belt which I have described. 

Happily, we find ourselves planted in a climate adapted to the 
highest state of man. The soil is sufficiently productive to afford 
the amplest sustenance ; and it only yields its harvest into the 
hardy hand of industry. Constant demands are made upon the 
contrivance and labor of the mass of our population. Had we a 
more fertile soil, we might indeed command more leisure ; but facts 
show, that leisure possessed without previous toil, is wasted in idle- 
ness or profligacy. 

The most extensive acquisitions in knowledge have been made by 
men of large business, and those of constant professional employ- 
ment. Our long and cold winters, forbidding the pleasures of the field 
and the grove, furnish the best season for the cultivation of mind. 
We should, therefore, by no means repine that our heritage is among 
the bleak winds, and on the comparatively sterile soil of New- 
England. 

A second requisite for producing first rate men, is a good parent- 
age. There must be good blood, or else there is a deficiency which 
cannot be supplied. I fully believe that all the nations of the 
earth, were made of one blood ; but I also know that this blood 
has been greatly corrupted. Whole races have degenerated, 
through many succeeding generations. They transmit this accu- 
mulation of debasement to posterity. That accurate and wide 
observer of mankind, Dr. Good, remarks ; " the variable talents of 
the mind are as propagable as the various features of the body — 
how or by what means we know not — but the fact is incontroverti- 
ble. Wit and dulness, genius and idiotism, run in direct streams 
from generation to generation. And hence the moral character of 
families, of tribes, and of whole nations. The understanding, it is 
admitted, is in many tribes habitually obtuse. It has thus indeed 



been propagated for a long succession of ages ; and till the mind 
receives a new turn, till it becomes cultivated and called into action 
by some benevolent stimulus, the same obtuseness must necessarily 
continue, and by a prolongation of the habit, may perhaps even 
increase." 

It would be utterly impossible to produce a nation of first rate 
men from any of these degenerate stocks. Surround them by 
whatever influences conduce most to excite and elevate, and the 
improvement will be very slow and gradual. That narrow ridge 
of mountains, lying between the Caspian and the Black Seas, has 
sent out its line of noble descent into all the world. Wherever 
the sons of these mountains pitch their tent and build their habita- 
tions, " the wilderness and the solitary place are made glad for 
them." Every where, they are the patrons of enterprize and 
knowledge, themselves the brightest patterns. The genius of that 
honored spot may stand upon her own proud eminence, and look 
abroad upon the colonies which she has sent forth, and challenge 
comparison with all the rest of the race. Out of the loins of these 
Circassians came our ancestors. The men who settled N. England 
were more than ordinary samples of this illustrious family. The 
trees that remain in the forest over which the tempest in its fury 
has swept, show that their trunks are oak, and that they have 
struck their roots deep into an iron soil. The men who came first 
to New-England had been tried in the flames of a heated and pro- 
tracted persecution. Trials, dangers, death could not destroy the 
firm purposes of their souls. They did not faint in the day of 
adversity. It was early determined, among those who led in the 
enterprise of settling this part of the new world, that they would 
colonize none but " the best." Like the army of Gideon, the emi- 
grants were repeatedly sifted. Whoever was of a faint heart 
remained at home : and those of weak constitutions and feeble 
limbs early perished through hardships and exposure. The land 
was indeed planted with " a noble vine, wholly of the right seed." 

If we succeed not here, in perpetuating a nation of hardy, 
vigorous, intelligent men, the failure can never be charged to those 
who felled the trees, and planted the vineyard. The history of 
the Pilgrims cannot be too often repeated. They were not des- 
perate adventurers, making a last effort to save themselves from 
infamy or oblivion. " Their's was not the flight of guilt, but of 



virtue. It was a humble and peaceful religion, flying from cause- 
less oppression. It was conscience, attempting to escape from the 
arbitrary rule of the Stuarts." Never were colonies settled under 
circumstances more favorable to posterity. The Pilgrims, their 
associates and successors, were called to sow the seed of a vast 
empire ; we reap the harvest of blessing from furrows turned by 
their hands, and moistened with drops from their brows. They 
were men of athletic bodies, compelled from their first landing to 
inure themselves to severe toil. They were men of very respect- 
able literary attainments, and of the firmest moral character. 

How favorably in this respect does our situation contrast with 
thai of what are called " our sister republics" in South America. 
They have been attempting to imitate our example in the establish- 
ment of free institutions. But the descendants of the pirates who 
plundered Mexico, and wet the mines of Peru with innocent blood, 
cannot enjoy freedom. An iron despotism alone can keep them in 
subjection. Texas may have her mimic revolutions — her Congress 
of duelists, assassins, swindlers and vagabonds ; but liberty, peace 
and order will not dwell among them. If ever you see there a 
nation of virtuous men, some angel will breathe into the air, and 
trouble the fountains, so that they will wash turpitude into purity, 
and bleach consciences black as sackcloth into the whiteness of 
snow. 

Other circumstances to be estimated, in the production of worthy 
men, are the laws, religion, and modes of education. 

While laws are an index of the intelligence, morals, and enter- 
prise of a people, they exert a powerful and direct influence upon 
them all. Some of the richest soil on earth, the best coasts wash- 
ed by any waves, lie within the dominions of the proud Monarch 
of Turkey. But so arbitrary and selfish is his policy, that his 
subjects are discouraged from all enterprise, and find but poor en- 
couragement even to their virtue or knowledge. 

For seven hundred years, the wisdom of Lycurgus was seen at 
Sparta. By his severe and rigid laws he impressed, through all 
this period, fortitude and magnanimity upon the character of the 
Lacedemonians. While his laws remained, they were a barrier to 
luxury and idleness. They were repealed ; and the wave that 
destroys all nations swept over the city and the monuments of 
Lycurgus. The first marked period of improvement in civilization, 



in the history of England, was after the laws of Alfred. This 
King of worthy memory has impressed his image upon the whole 
Anglo-Saxon race, not more by the patronage and example given 
to learning, than by the many wise and beneficial laws that were 
enacted during his reign. While he launched the first fleet, and 
laid the foundation for all the future power and glory of that 
" proud Isle," as mistress of the seas, he also carefully guarded the 
interests of his subjects, yielding them a trial by jury, and teaching 
them, in all his statutes, that they had individual interests in the 
government. 

From the earliest written compact, made on board the May- 
flower, and under which the Pilgrims lived and flourished, down to 
the establishment of our latest constitution, our laws have been 
framed by the combined wisdom of experience and earnest zeal 
for the best good of the community. The principles asserted are 
such, that the most rigid scrutiny cannot prove them false, and 
such as have a most beneficial practical bearing upon the commu- 
nity. It has taken ages to evolve a few simple principles in the 
constitution of this State. Not till very recently, could any such 
sentences as these have been found in the constitutions or laws of 
any people. " No one shall be hurt, molested or restrained, in his 
person, liberty, or estate, for worshiping God in the manner and 
season most agreeable to his conscience." " Every citizen may 
freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on any subject, being 
responsible for the abuse of this liberty." The power of the 
people, in adding from time to time to their laws or of altering 
those already enacted, tends powerfully to awaken and stimulate 
mind. The fact, that each individual's vote is of equal value in 
the ballot box leads all to a higher estimate of themselves, and 
encourages that disposition, implanted in all men, to be and to do 
something worthy of their race, which otherwise might languish 
and die for want of support. 

So far as religion has influence upon the public mind and the 
formation of character, it is proper here to notice it. The history 
of the world shows that this is one of the controling elements that 
gives direction to national character. The splendid system of 
Grecian mythology, invented by the earlier poets and diffused by 
their writings, had an obvious and paramount influence in giving 
direction to that nation ; which to the present day has had no 



8 

superior in the arts, no equal in the accuracy and refinemnt of their 
language, and whose courage and contempt of death are written 
highest upon the monuments of fame. Religion was inwrought 
through the whole mind of the nation. The blood of their sacri- 
fices consecrated every inportant enterprise. 

By representing the grove, the field and the city as filled with 
guardian spirits, they had much nearer the conception of an ever 
present deity, than any other of the ancient heathen nations. The 
degrading influence of a low and vicious idolatry is manifest among 
modern heathen nations. The revelation of the true God, now in 
our hands, at once attesting its truth and its superiority to all other 
systems of religion, in its contests and its triumphs, has also a far 
more beneficial influence in the formation of national character. 
None can deny the purity of its precepts, nor contemplate without 
admiration the grandeur of its themes, nor question the importance 
of its discoveries. Man is here placed in a new and higher posi- 
tion than any occupied by the sages, whose sole guide was their 
own reflection and experience. His immortality is here proved, 
and the path by which he may make it glorious and happy, is made 
luminous from the very source of light itself. He is here taught 
that he is the child of God, stamped with his image, under his laws, 
and amenable to his tribunal. What can stimulate a human being 
in the race of a high and virtuous life, if the fact that God and 
angels are the spectators, and heaven the prize, will not ? The 
form too in which Christianity presents itself to the mind in this 
country, is at once calculated to draw forth the best affections of 
the heart, and the highest efforts of the mind. The fundamental 
principle of protestant Christianity is, the Bible is the only and 
sufficient rule of faith and practice ; and that each mind is to inter- 
pret this book for himself, accountable to none but God for his 
opinions. This strikes off at once those fetters of the soul, thrown 
around it, by popes, cardinals, counsels and general conventions. 

Allow this principle free and unrestrained scope, and it will do 
much to produce a nation of reflecting and intelligent men. That 
the religious world has been slow in coming to this result, is no 
more the fault of religion, than it is the crime of astronomy, that 
no eye sooner than Newton's saw the simplicity of her laws, and 
the harmony and granduer of her revolutions. The order of the 
heavenly world was just as perfect, when the unaided eye of the 



Persian Astrologer gazed upon it, as when surveyed by the 
telescope of a Herschel. 

We may now rejoice that every man may follow the dictates of 
his own mind, without fear of the scourge, the scaffold or the stake. 
No careful observer can mistake the impulse given to an individual 
of the humblest capacity by a deep and practical interest in the 
subject of religion. His whole soul seems attracted by a new and 
higher impulse, so that in a period of ten years his profiting in 
knowledge will be manifest to all. 

New-England is more indebted for her present elevation, to the 
religious sentiments of our forefathers, than to every thing else. 
Religion made them what they were. Religion furnished the 
motives which led them forth from their kindred, and the land of 
their homes, to plant a nation in the wilderness. Religion sustain- 
ed them in all their sufferings and severe trials. This was their 
cloud by day and their pillar of fire by night. They were singu- 
larly fortunate, too, in bringing with them such numbers of learned, 
pious and devoted ministers of religion. Men superior to them 
have seldom, since the days of the Apostles, stood before a con- 
gregation, or lifted a voice in the pulpit. Of one of them, the 
venerable Hooker of Hartford, the colonists said, " Europe has 
more than repaid America in this one pearl, for all the treasures 
taken from her coast." Character is no where better formed than 
under the purifying influences of the sanctuary. Let a family 
desert the house of God, and in twenty years, that family will rank 
with the ignorant and vicious portion of the community. It must 
therefore be regarded as a circumstance highly favorable to the 
production of worthy men, that every where in New-England, the 
spire of the sanctuary is seen, side by side with the school room, 
the one inviting the young to seek for wisdom and knowledge, the 
other proclaiming that " the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom." 

The last point to which I direct your attention is, the modes of 
Education. The question is now settled, by the united voice of the 
present and the past, that what we call learning is better acquired 
in public schools and seminaries, than under private tutors. So far 
at least as the great mass of the community are concerned, neces- 
sity gives but one side of this question. The children of a large 
majority of the community must be educated in public schools. 



10 

Nor need they regret this. What necessity has laid upon them, is 
adopted by the few as a matter of choice. It is well, then, to look 
at the influence of public schools upon the mind of a community. 

The systems of education prevalent among the ancient Persians 
and Greeks were eminently calculated to produce such men as 
those nations delighted to honor. A few of the first years, say six 
or seven, were wholly devoted to the exercise and growth of the 
muscular powers. And I very seriously question whether these 
years could be better employed. Children ought not, at this sea- 
son, to be pent up, either in the parlour or the school room. With- 
out following Miss Martineau in all her devotion to ' spontaneous- 
ness,' I think a decent respect should be shown to it. The practice 
of our ancestors was as nearly right as any system ever devised by 
man. About one half of the year was by them assigned to the 
original and only divine employment, tilling the ground ; and the 
other half to study. They laid, in every neighborhood, the foun- 
dation of the little school room ; and as the population thickened 
around it, they established the more advanced Grammar school ; 
and then with a noble generosity, — the " depth of their poverty 
abounding to the riches of their liberality" — and with a far-seeing 
wisdom, they endowed, with the corn their own hands had taken 
from the field, the University of Knowledge. An example like 
this, the world has never known. Go search the records of the 
past ; find all the names of the patrons of Education. You will 
see an Alexander lending his purse to the historian — and a Ptolemy 
and a James making princely provision for the translation of the 
Bible ; but where else do you find a hardy peasantry, bringing in 
the sheaf of wheat, and laying it down in the treasury of the 
university. 

A sentiment has to some extent prevailed in this State, as injuri- 
ous to common schools, as it is adverse to all the higher interests of 
knowledge. Many have thought that, while they ought to patron- 
ize the common schools by legislative aid, nothing need be done for 
the academy, and especially for the college. As though the streams 
could flow, when the fountain itself is dry. As though a tree could 
have branches, and leaves, and fruit, without a trunk. Suffer the 
academies to decay, and tlie colleges to rot down, and in one gene- 
ration the Goths and Vandals of our own soil, would tread every 
school house in the dust. Who are the most efficient and constant 



11 

friends of the common schools ? Are they the educated, or the 
ignorant 1 I never knew a well educated man that was not the 
friend and promoter of the universal diffusion of knowledge. The 
objection has been, that endowments to colleges benefitted the rich 
exclusively. The reverse of this is much nearer the truth. The 
rich man could huy an education for his sons at almost any price. 
The great mass of parents must obtain it for theirs at a moderate 
sum, or it is forever beyond their hopes or their power. The endow- 
ments, therefore, granted to academies and colleges, are the high 
way cast up for all to walk upon ; and without which, those in mod- 
erate circumstances could never enter the arena, and contend for 
the highest prizes of the university. With the way open, young 
men from this condition are the most numerous victors in the race. 
If the great body of people understand their true interests, they 
will indeed demand and keep in vigorous operation an efficient 
system of common schools ; but they will also open the doors of the 
higher seminary to every son of the republic. There should for- 
ever be, in all the offices and in all the professions of the country, 
men from every condition and employment in society. Then the 
feelings of all will be appreciated and their opinions represented. 
But they cannot do honor to their respective stations, nor acquire 
a due proportion of influence, without the most ample mental 
resources. To prepare such men, the academy and college, no 
less than the primary schools, must receive the fostering care of the 
State. And here is open before the legislator of the present day a 
field, where he may erect monuments more glorious and more 
enduring than the pyramids. It is now a time of profound and 
almost universal peace. The resources of the country are ample. 
This method of internal improvement is neither partial nor uncon- 
stitutional. It is made (by the constitution of this State) the duty 
of the legislature ' to encourage and suitably to endow, from time 
to time, all academies, colleges and seminaries of learning within 
the State.' And I cannot see why it is not now the duty and the 
previlege of this State, immediately to endow one or two academies 
in each county. We have some fifty of these institutions, scarcely 
one of which is suitably endowed. There are not five in the State, 
where a father can place his son, and feel confident that he will be- 
come master of the subjects he may study. Two or three permanent 
teachers, responsible for the progress of their pupils and for the 



12 

character of the school, should be placed at the head of one 
academy, at least, in every county in the State. No course of 
legislation would so soon enrich the instruction of the common 
schools. 

More might, and ought to be, done for the common schools, 
than ever yet has been. Yet I have often been pained, to hear 
our common schools, as they are, disparaged. It has often been 
said ' that they are worse than none'; l the money is all thrown away.' 
Such expressions are by no means true. To see the value of our 
present schools, you have only to compare a section of country 
where there are none, with any portion of New-England. I could 
wish, indeed, that instructors were in many instances better quali- 
fied ; that parents would be more scrupulous in sending their chil- 
dren ; and that the circle of studies were somewhat enlarged ; but 
with all their defects, I love and value the common schools. They 
have excited and given impulse to thousands of minds, which had 
else been unknown among their generation and to posterity. A 
great many persons, by drinking at these little rills, have acquired 
a taste for the deeper and wider streams of knowledge. Many who 
honor these schools as the nurse of their childhood, are doing 
valiant battle in the first rank of those who seek the honor and the 
salvation of their country. 

On the whole, the instructors of our common schools, and the 
friends of education, have much reason to thank God and take 
courage. There is much in our present condition to assure us that 
our labor will not be without reward. We may rear within this 
State as noble and worthy generations of men, as the world has 
ever seen. The climate is well adapted to such a purpose. The 
wild and broken landscape, here the little hill, and there the moun- 
tain ; on one side the deep ravine, and on the other the broad 
valley ; here the pure rill, and there the swelling river ; the wild 
winds of winter, the swift approach of spring, and the rapid growth 
of summer, all unite to awaken mind and excite it to vigorous 
action. The noble, honored sires, whose praises are in all the 
world, their shining virtues, written upon every page of our history, 
like the statues of Miltiades, will not sufTer us to slumber. Their 
love of knowledge, of true liberty, of strict morals, must awaken 
posterity to emulate their virtues. 

In this subject we find both our encouragement and responsibil- 



13 

ity in the work of education. Had we a less propitious climate, 
or other insurmountable obstacles, we might sit down in hopeless 
indifference. Had our ancestors enstamped upon their posterity 
images of weakness and crime, we might never expect to wipe 
away the disgrace, or purify the poisoned blood flowing down from 
their veins. Rome was settled by robbers ; and the nation was a 
robber of cities and the plunderer of nations ; war was their ele- 
ment and their strength ; repose was weakness and anarchy. As 
the shrewd and patriotic Caledonian said of them, " they make a 
solitude, and then call it peace." 

The character of New-England can never cease to feel the 
influence of the Puritans. Already has this section of country 
attained an honorable distinction among the families of the repub- 
lic, and of the earth. She has men whose names have been heard 
by the remotest of civilized nations. Her sons of the present and 
of the past are honorably enrolled among the greatest and best of 
the divines, the jurists, and the statesmen of the world. If she is 
true to herself, a still wider renown awaits her. We are called to 
labor upon no doubtful experiment. Other hands have laid deep 
and strong the foundations of her monuments. A patient and per- 
severing application of the principles, in morals, education and 
religion, which have made her population what they are, will raise 
them to a superiority to themselves. 

A single mind should not be suffered to slumber in darkness and 
ignorance. To perfect the system of moral, religious and intellec- 
tual training for the young, so piously commenced by our fathers, 
should be the highest ambition of the present day. The age is 
indeed distinguished by its startling, sometimes astonishing novel- 
ties ; for the rapidity of its changes, and the noise of its self- 
applause ; but the divinity of mind, and the heart of purest benev- 
olence, work not their best achievements in any of these. He 
who labors to perfect character (at present though it be but a 
single specimen of the divine workmanship,) in some good degree 
complete in all its parts, has performed a labor which will last 
longer, and reflect more honor, than the chiseled heroes of Phidias 
or Lysippus. If he who plants a tree is a benefactor to mankind, 
how much more is he who brings to perfection an immortal soul ! 
Who could desire a more honorable position than that of Socrates 
in the market at Athens ; Plato walking in the groves ; or our 



11 

own half century teacher Abbot, — all possessing the full confidence 
and entire control of their pupils. Theirs, and such as theirs, is 
the place where wisdom dwells. In such sober methods she hews 
out her pillars, and prepares the materials for her house. Who 
does not wish to polish a stone, or assist in rearing the walls of this 
edifice ? He that will labor here long and faithfully, shall have 
not a noisy and transient, but a sure and permanent reward. He 
shall see the fruit that will remain. He plants trees whose leaves 
are ever green, and like those in the Paradise above, they bear 
fruit every month. No man in the community does a more perma- 
nent good to society than the ever faithful and skilful teacher. 

Let not, therefore, the teacher, who goes into the most obscure 
corner of the State, and occupies a room over which the native 
forest still hangs, think that his labor is in vain. He is there open- 
ing the embracements of immortal minds ; and he may be training 
the spirit of a Cato, a Pericles, or a Franklin. He may be un- 
loosing the tongue of a Fenelon, a Henry, or a Summerfield. He 
labors not alone. A thousand genial influences are cooperating 
with him. No matter how rough the quarry in which you find the 
gems of mind. Disengaged and polished, they are often diamonds 
of the first water. The country expects at your hands, men qual- 
ified to guide her councils, shine in the professions, be her support 
in adversity — her ornament in prosperity. Much of the character 
of the future age depends upon the instructors of the young. You 
cannot, therefore, feel too deeply the responsibilities which rest 
upon you. Notwithstanding much has been said of improving the 
rooms, the books, the modes of instruction, yet the best of all im- 
provements, is a revised and improved edition of teachers. Almost 
every thing depends upon the living instructor. A good teacher 
cannot, indeed, supply the deficient faculties of a stupid pet, for 
not teaching whom all the mysteries of science he is often censured 
by blind parents ; but he can and will call out and exercise facul- 
ties, where they are found. Wherever the efficient and faithful 
teacher goes, he will leave his impress upon his pupils. If he has 
been superficial in his acquisitions, they will become so. If he 
penetrate to the dividing asunder of the elements of knowledge, 
they will learn never to pass an intricate sum, nor to accuse the 
book of error upon every other page. 

Especially let me request you not to be carried away by iliat 



15 

modern and foolish doctrine, that moral suasion is the only motive 
to study and obedience. Of all the theories of the inventive cen- 
tury in which we live, this most directly contradicts experience, 
common sense, and the Bible. Quinctilian was right when he 
said, " Give me the boy whom praise excites, and who keenly 
feels reproach." The Bible is right when it says, " Spare the rod, 
and spoil the child." You might as well expect to go out into the 
Pacific Ocean, and lead home a whale around Cape Horn, by moral 
suasion, or persuade a lion to hold still, while some unfeeling son 
of Aesculapius wrenched every tooth from his head, as to attempt 
to govern men, or children, wholly by moral suasion. First of all, 
teach your pupils what law is, and then if they disobey, give them 
practical illustration of what penalty is. 

Much of the riot and insubordination abroad in the land had 
their origin in the family and the school room. I recommend — no 
needless severity, but a manly, firm and strict adherence to order 
and government. You will be greatly assisted in exciting this 
respect for law in the minds of your pupils, by that degree of 
religious sentiment which it is your duty to inculcate. The laws 
of the State are imperative, that you should impress 'piety and 
morality,' upon your pupils. This therefore, is no more your 
moral than your legal duty. I do not mean, that the teacher of 
the public school, should avail himself of his position to make 
converts to any sect. Divided as the community is, this cannot be 
desired or expected. But this much in regard to Christianity ought 
every where, and in every case to be insisted on ; that the teacher 
himself show and require, respect for the sabbath, reverence for 
the Bible, and regular attendance upon the public worship of God. 
Any teacher that comes short of this is as unfit to instruct the 
young, as though he had been guilty of treason against the State. 
I speak of religion only in its bearing upon the citizen. I speak 
of it only as Washington and the elders, who lived in the days 
of our Joshua, spake and thought of it. Ponder the words of 
that sage. " Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to polit- 
ical prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. 
In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should 
labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, — these 
firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere 
politician equally with the pious man ought to respect and 



16 

cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions 
with private and public felicity. And let us with caution indulge 
the supposition, that morality can be obtained without religion. 
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education 
on minds of a peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid 
us to expect that national morality can prevail, in exclusion of 
religious principle." 

The same sentiment is contained in an address from the pen of 
Josiah Quincy, President of Harvard College : " The great com- 
prehensive truths, written in letters of living light upon every page 
of our history, — the language addressed by every past age of New- 
England to all future ages, is this ; — Human happiness has no per- 
fect security but freedom — freedom none but virtue — virtue none 
but knowledge ; — and neither freedom, nor virtue, nor knowledge 
has any vigor, or immortal hope, except in the principles of the 
christian faith, and in the sanctions of the christian religion." 

Let these sentiments be the guide of parents and teachers, and 
" your sons shall grow up as plants around your table, and your 
daughters shall be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of 
a palace." library of congress 




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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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